The Gospel of St. Matthew

Schmidt Number: S-2272

On-line since: 15th January, 2017

LECTURE ONE

Berne,September 1, 1910

This is the
third opportunity I have had of speaking in Switzerland
about the greatest of all events in the history of the
Earth and of Mankind. The first was in Basle, when I
spoke of the aspect of this event presented in the Gospel
of St. John; on the second occa.sion the lectures were
based on the account given by St. Luke; and now, on the
third occasion, the basis of the lectures is to be the
Gospel of St. Matthew. [ Note 01
]

As I have
often said, it is an important fact that accounts of this
event have been preserved in four records, in certain
respects seeming to differ from each other. This often
gives rise to negative and destructive criticism from
materialistic scholarship to-day yet it is precisely the
point that we, as anthroposophists, consider significant.
For nobody should venture to portray any fact or being he
has observed from one side only. If a tree is
photographed from a single side, it cannot justifiably be
said that this photograph is a true or complete portrayal
of the whole outer appearance of the tree. If, however,
it is photographed from four sides, by comparing the four
pictures — even if they differ considerably —
we can gain a comprehensive idea of the tree. If this
analogy holds good for ordinary things, even in such an
external sense, how could anyone fail to realise that an
event embracing in the fullest sense all happenings and
essential facts of existence would be incomprehensible if
it were described from one side only. We should not
therefore speak of ‘contradictions’ in the
four Gospels. The truth is far rather that each writer
knew himself to be capable of describing only one aspect
of this stupendous event and was aware that by comparison
of the different accounts it would be possible for
humanity gradually to form a comprehensive picture of it.
So we too will be patient and try to gain some
understanding of this greatest of all events in
Earth-evolution from the four accounts given in the New
Testament.

From what
has been said in other lecture-courses, you will
certainly be able to gather how the four points of view
presented in the Gospels can be differentiated. But now,
before characterizing these four points of view even in
their purely external aspect, let me make it clear at the
beginning of this lecture-course that I shall not do what
is customary nowadays when studying the Gospels. It is
usual to begin with accounts of their historical origins.
But it will be better for us to wait until the end of the
lectures before hearing what there is to be said about
the origin of the Gospel of St. Matthew. It is after all
only natural and would be borne out in the case of other
branches of knowledge, that the gist of any subject must
be thoroughly grasped before its history can be truly
understood. No one can usefully study a history of
arithmetic, for example, who is entirely ignorant of that
subject. The proper place for historical details is at
the end of a study, and when this procedure is not
followed the natural needs of human cognition are being
overlooked. Here, then, we shall try to satisfy these
needs by examining, first, the content of the Gospel of
St. Matthew, and afterwards by saying something about its
historical origin.

Study of
the Gospels, even of their external form, makes us aware
of a certain difference in the modes of expression, and
this feeling will be intensified when we recall what was
said in my lectures on the Gospels of St. John and St.
Luke. In trying to fathom the mighty communications given
in the Gospel of St. John, we are almost overwhelmed by
their sublimity and spiritual grandeur; we feel that this
Gospel reveals the very highest goal to which human
wisdom can aspire and human cognition gradually attain.
Man seems to be standing below, lifting the eyes of his
soul to the heights of cosmic existence and saying to
himself : However insignificant I may be, the Gospel of
St. John enables me to divine that some element with
which I myself am akin descends into my soul and imbues
me with the feeling of infinitude. — Thus the
spiritual magnitude of the cosmic life to which man is
related is experienced a by the soul when contemplating
the Gospel of St. John.

In studying
St. Luke's Gospel we found that the manner of its
presentation was different. In contemplating the Gospel
of St. John it is paramountly the spiritual greatness
— even though divined but dimly — that
pervades the soul like a magic breath, whereas in the
Gospel of St. Luke the influence is more inward, causing
in the soul an intensification of all that the powers of
cosmic love and sacrifice can effect in the world when we
are able to share in them. So, while St. John describes
the Being of Christ Jesus in His spiritual stature, St.
Luke shows us His immeasurable capacity for sacrifice.
St. Luke gives us an inkling of what this power of
sacrificing love has brought about in the evolution of
the world and of mankind — this love, which, in the
same way as other forces, pulsates and weaves throughout
the universe. We see, therefore, that while it is mainly
the element of feeling that is uppermost when we
steep ourselves in the Gospel of St. Luke, it is the
element of understanding — informing us,
to some extent, of the very foundations of knowledge and
of its goals — that is aroused by the Gospel of St.
John. That Gospel speaks more to our faculty of
cognition, our understanding, the Gospel of St. Luke more
to our hearts. The Gospels themselves produce these
feelings in us; but it was also my endeavour to let the
keynotes sound through the lectures that were given on
the two Gospels in the light of Spiritual Science. Those
who heard only words in the lectures on the Gospel of St.
John or in those on the Gospel of St. Luke, certainly did
not hear everything. There was a fundamental difference
in the manner and style of speaking in the two
lecture-courses. And everything must again be different
when we come to study the Gospel of St. Matthew.

The Gospel
of St. Luke makes us feel as if all the human love that
ever existed in the evolution of mankind poured into the
Being who lived as Christ Jesus at the beginning of our
era.

Considered
merely in its external aspect, the Gospel of St. Matthew
appears at first to present a picture of greater variety
than do the other two Gospels, even than do all the other
three. For when the time comes to study the Gospel of St.
Mark we shall find that in a certain respect it too
presents one particular aspect.

The Gospel
of. St, John reveals to us the magnitude of the
wisdom of Christ Jesus; the Gospel of St. Luke,
the power of His love. When we study the Gospel
of St. Mark, the picture will primarily be one of
might, of the creative Powers permeating the
universe in all their glory. In that Gospel there is
something overwhelming in the intensity with which the
cosmic forces come to expression: when we really begin to
understand the content of the Gospel of St. Mark, it is
as though these forces were surging towards us from all
directions of space. While the Gospel of St. Luke brings
inner warmth into the soul and the Gospel of St. John
fills it with hope, the Gospel of St. Mark makes us aware
of the overwhelming power and splendour of the cosmic
forces — so overwhelming that the soul feels well
nigh shattered.

The Gospel
of St. Matthew is different. All three elements are
present here: the warmth of feeling and love, the
knowledge full of hope and promise, the majesty of the
universe. These elements are present in the Gospel of St.
Matthew in a modified form and for this reason seem to be
more humanly akin to us than in the other Gospels.
Whereas the wisdom, the love and the splendour depicted
in the other three Gospels might overwhelm us almost to
the point of collapse, we feel able to stand erect before
the picture presented in the Gospel of St. Matthew, even
to approach and stand on a level with it. Everything is
more humanly related to us; we never feel shattered,
although it too contains elements which in the other
Gospels tend to have this effect. It is the most human of
the four records and describes Christ Jesus as a man, in
such a way that in all His deeds He is near us in a human
sense. In a certain respect the Gospel of St. Matthew is
like a commentary on the other Gospels. It clarifies to
some extent what otherwise is often beyond the reach of
human understanding and once we realise this, great
illumination is shed upon the nature of the other three
Gospels.

In the
Gospel of St. John we are shown how with his wisdom and
knowledge man can set out towards the goal that is
attainable; this is made plain at the very beginning of
the Gospel, where Christ Jesus is referred to as the
Creative Logos. The highest spiritual conception our
minds and hearts can attain is presented in the very
first sentences of this Gospel.

It is
different in the Gospel of St. Matthew. This Gospel
begins by giving the lineage of the man Jesus of Nazareth
from a definite point in history and within a particular
people. It shows us how the qualities that were
concentrated in Jesus of Nazareth had been acquired
through heredity from Abraham and his descendants; how
throughout three times fourteen generations a people had
allowed the best it had to impart to flow into the blood,
in order that preparation might be made for the
flowering, in one single Individuality, of the highest
powers possible to man.

The Gospel
of St. John points to the infinity of the Logos, the
Gospel of St. Luke leads back to the very beginning of
mankind's evolution. The Gospel of St. Matthew shows us a
man, Jesus of Nazareth, born from a people whose
qualities had been transmitted by heredity from Abraham,
the father of the tribal stock, through three times
fourteen generations.

It can only
very briefly be indicated here that anyone who desires
really to understand the Gospel of St. Mark must have
some knowledge of the cosmic forces streaming through the
evolution of our world. For the picture of Christ Jesus
presented in that Gospel shows us that the Cosmos itself
— an essence of the cosmic forces in the infinitude
of space — is operating in and through a human
agency. St. Mark sets out to describe the deeds of Christ
as extracts of cosmic activities, how in Christ Jesus,
the God-Man on the Earth, we have before us a
quintessence of the boundless power of the Sun. Thus St.
Mark describes to us the manner in which the forces of
the heavens and the stars operate through human
powers.

In a
certain way the Gospel of St. Matthew too is concerned,
with stellar activity, for at the very beginning it is
clearly indicated that cosmic happenings are connected
with the evolution of humanity, inasmuch as the three
Magi are guided to the birthplace of Jesus by a star. But
this Gospel does not describe cosmic workings as does the
Gospel of St. Mark; it does not require us to raise our
eyes to these heights. It shows us three men, three Magi,
and the effect the Cosmos has upon them. We can
contemplate these three men and become aware of what they
are feeling. Thus if it is a matter of being able to
experience cosmic realities, the Gospel of St. Matthew
directs our gaze, not to infinitudes of space, but to man
himself, to the effect, the reflection, of cosmic
activities in human hearts.

(Again I
beg that these indications shall be taken merely as
pointing to the style in which the Gospels are written.
For it is fundamentally characteristic of the Gospels, I
repeat, that they describe events from different angles.
The distinctive style in which each is written is in
accordance with what they want to convey about the
greatest event in the evolution of Mankind and of the
Earth.)

So we see
that the fact of paramount significance at the beginning
of the Gospel of St. Matthew is that attention is called
to the direct blood-relationships of Jesus of Nazareth.
An answer is given to thc question: How was the physical
personality of Jesus of Nazareth constituted? How were
all the qualities of a people since its founder, Abraham,
concentrated in this one personality in order that the
Being we call Christ could reveal His presence there ? We
are told: In order that the Christ Being might be able to
incarnate in a physical body, this body must have
qualities that could only be present if all the qualities
of the blood of Abraham's descendants were concentrated
in the single personality of Jesus of Nazareth. We arc
therefore shown how the blood of Jesus of Nazareth leads
back through the generations to the founder of the Hebrew
people; and how on this account the essential attributes
of this people, their particular function in
world-history, in the evolution of the world and of
humanity, were concentrated in the physical personality
of Jesus of Nazareth. To understand the intention of the
writer of the Gospel of St. Matthew in giving this
introduction, it is therefore necessary to know something
about the intrinsic nature of the Hebrew people and to be
able to answer the question: What was this race, by
virtue of its special character, able to give to
mankind?

Materialistic history pays little attention to what must
here be advanced. It gives abstract accounts of outer
happenings, placing one people practically on a par with
every other. But this entirely ignores a fact which
anyone wishing to understand the evolutionary process
must regard as fundamental, namely, that no people has
the same task and mission as another; each has its own
specific task and mission; each has to contribute a
particular share of the riches which should accrue to the
Earth as the result of mankind's evolution. And each
share is distinct from the others. Even down to physical
details, each people is so constituted that it can make
its appropriate contribution to humanity as a whole. In
other words: the physical, etheric and astral bodies of
human beings belonging to a particular people develop and
arc combined in such a way as to afford the appropriate
instrument for the contribution that people has to make
to humanity. — What, then, was to be the
contribution of the Hebrew people, and how were its
essential qualities concentrated in the body of Jesus of
Nazareth?

To
understand the mission of the Hebrew people we must make
a deeper study of the whole evolution of humanity. It
will be necessary to speak with greater precision of
certain matters indicated more briefly in other lectures
and in the book Occult Science—an Outline.
The part played by the Hebrew people in the evolution of
mankind as a whole will be most easily understood if we
take the Atlantean catastrophe as a starting-point.

When the
face of the Earth was changed as a result of the
Atlantean Deluge, the peoples then living on the
continent of Atlantis moved from the West across to the
East in two main streams, one taking a more northerly,
the other a more southerly course. One stream in this
great movement of Atlantean peoples through Europe
towards Asia spread to the region around the Caspian Sea,
while another passed through the land we now call Africa.
Over in Asia a kind of confluence of these two streams
took place, as when two currents meet and a vortex is
formed.

But what
chiefly interests us about these peoples who were thus
forced to make their way across to the East from
Atlantis, is their mode of perception, the general form
of their soul-life — in the case, at least, of the
main mass of them. In the first post-Atlantean epoch
man's whole constitution of soul was different from what
it came to be later on — different above all from
what it is to-day. Those ancient people still had
clairvoyant perception of their surroundings; they were
able to behold the spiritual, and even what is now seen
physically was perceived then in a more spiritual way.
But a point of special importance is that this
clairvoyance of the original post-Atlantean peoples was
again different, in a certain respect, from that of the
Atlanteans themselves in the heyday of their culture.
Their clairvoyance enabled men to gaze into a spiritual
world with purity of vision, and the revelations of the
spiritual world engendered impulses for the good in their
souls. Indeed it would be true to say that during the
prime of Atlantean culture, the strength of impulses for
the good depended upon the ability of a man to look
deeply into the spiritual world; in one with less ability
these impulses were correspondingly weaker.

The changes
which then took place on. the Earth were such that
already towards the last third of the Atlantean epoch,
but especially in the early post-Atlantean epoch, the
good aspects of the old Atlantean clairvoyance had
gradually disappeared and were preserved only by those
who had undergone special training in the centres of
Initiation. As time went on, what remained of this
clairvoyance as a natural, inborn gift assumed a
character leading all too easily to vision of the evil
Powers of existence. Clairvoyance had become too weak to
behold the good Powers. On the other hand, vision of the
evil, delusive Powers remained, and a form of
clairvoyance by no means commendable was widespread in
certain regions inhabited by post-Atlantean peoples, a
clairvoyance acting in itself as a kind of tempter.

This
decline of the old clairvoyance was accompanied by a
gradual development of the faculty of sense-perception
recognized as normal for human beings to-day. But the
things men perceived with their eyes in the first
post-Atlantean epoch, and which they perceive normally
to-day, were not sources of temptation in that past time,
because the soul-forces that are now the cause of
temptation had not yet developed. External perceptions
which may give rise to inordinate enjoyment in a man
to-day, however deceptive they may be, did not constitute
any particular temptation for early post-Atlantean man.
It was when inherited remains of the old clairvoyance
awakened in him that his temptation began. He had
practically no vision of the good side of the spiritual
world; the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces bad such a
strong effect upon him that what he saw Were the Powers
of temptation and delusion. With these inherited
faculties of ancient clairvoyance he perceived the
Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. And so it became
necessary for those whose wisdom for the leadership and
guidance of human evolution had been received from the
Mysteries, to institute means to ensure that in spite of
these adverse circumstances men should ultimately be led
to the good goal and to clarity of understanding.

The people
who had spread to the East after the great Atlantean
catastrophe were at very different stages of evolution;
it can be said that the level of moral and spiritual
development was highest in those who went farthest East.
The dawning faculty of external perception was like the
opening of a new world, revealing with ever greater
clarity the grandeur and splendour of the outer world of
the senses. This faculty was especially characteristic of
the people who settled to the North of present-day India,
in the regions extending to. the Caspian Sea, as far as
the Oxus and Jaxartes. In this region of Asia there had
settled groups of people from whom many racial streams
spread out in different directions, one such stream being
the ancient Indian people whose spiritual view of thc
world has often been characterized.

Soon after
the Atlantean. Flood, indeed to some extent - while it
was still in process, the sense-awareness of external
reality had already developed among this group of people
in Middle Asia. But at the same time, in the human beings
who had incarnated there, a kind of memory-knowledge
persisted, a living recollection of what they had
experienced in the days of Atlantis. This characteristic
was strongest in those who went down into India. They
had, it is true, great understanding of the splendour of
the external world; their faculties of observation and
sense-perception were more developed than those of the
other peoples, but. at thc same time their remembrance of
the ancient spiritual powers of vision in Atlantis was
vivid and strong. Hence there arose in them an intense
longing for the spiritual world which they remembered; it
was easy for them to gaze again into that world —
but they also had the feeling that what was presented to
the external senses was maya, illusion. And so in these
people too the impulse arose not to pay particular
attention to the outer world of sense but to do
everything possible to enable the soul — now
through development deliberately induced, through
yoga — to rise to the realm where it could
receive the revelations which in the days of old Atlantis
had come directly from the spiritual world.

This
tendency to despise the outer world, to regard it as
illusion and to follow only those impulses which led to
the spiritual, was less strongly developed in the people
who remained farther North. But they were in a very
tragic situation. The innate qualities of the ancient
Indian people were such that it was comparatively easy
for any one of them to undergo a definite training in
Yoga enabling him to rise once again into the realms he
had known in Atlantean times. It was easy for such a man
to overcome, what he regarded as illusion. He overcame it
in acts of cognition, and his supreme conviction was
this: The sense-world is maya, is illusion; but if I make
efforts to develop my soul I shall reach the world lying
behind the sense-world! Thus it was through an inner
process that the Indian succeeded in overcoming what he
regarded as maya.

The
character of the more northerly peoples was different.
They were the Persians, the Medes, the Bactrians —
known in history as Aryans in the narrower sense. In them
too there was a strong tendency towards the development
of external perception, external intellectuality. But the
urge to achieve through inner development, through some
form of Yoga, what the Atlanteans had experienced quite
naturally, was not particularly marked. Recollection of
the past was not strong enough in these more northerly
peoples to become a striving to overcome, through
knowledge, the illusion of the outer world. Their
attitude of soul was not the same as that of the Indians.
The attitude of an Iranian, a Persian, a Mede, might be
expressed in modern words somewhat as follows: If we once
dwelt in the spiritual world, experiencing and perceiving
realities of spirit and of soul, and now find ourselves
transplanted into the physical world we see with our eyes
and grasp with the brain-bound intellect, the cause of
this does not lie in man alone; what has to be overcome
cannot be overcome merely in the inner being of man.
Nothing much would result from that ! An Iranian would
have said: It is not only in man that a change has taken
place; Nature herself and everything on the Earth must
also have changed when man descended from
divine-spiritual realms. It cannot therefore be right to
leave the surrounding world just as it is, saying simply:
This is maya, illusion, but WC will disregard it and rise
into the spiritual world! In that way we shall, it is
true, bring about a change in ourselves but not in the
world around us. — Therefore the attitude of an
Iranian did not allow him to say: maya is outspread
around me; I will transcend it, will overcome it in my
own being and so reach the spiritual world. — No,
he said: man belongs to and is a member of the world
around him. Therefore if that which is divine in him, and
has descended with him from divine-spiritual heights, is
to be transformed, not only what is within him
must be changed back to its former state, but also
everything in the outer world around! — And this
was what gave the people the impulse to take an active
and vigorous share in transforming thc world.

Whereas in
India men said: The world has fallen; what it now
presents is maya—in the more northerly regions they
said : True, the world has fallen, but it is our task to
change it in such a way that it becomes spiritual again.
Contemplation, contemplative understanding — this
was basically characteristic of the Indian people. Their
attitude was simply that sense-perception is illusion,
maya. Activity, physical energy, the will to transform
external Nature — these were the basic
characteristics of the Iranian and other peoples living
in regions North of India. They said: The world around us
has fallen from the Divine but man is called upon to lead
it back again to the Divine! And the innate traits of the
Iranian people were sublimated and charged with
measureless energy in the spiritual leaders who went
forth from the Mysteries.

What took
place towards the East and South of the Caspian Sea can
only be adequately understood, even outwardly, by
comparing it with conditions still farther to the North,
that is to say in the regions bordering on the Siberia
and Russia of to-day, and extending even into Europe.
Here there were people who had preserved much of the
ancient clairvoyance and in whom a kind of balance could
be held between the faculty of the old spiritual
perception and that of material perception, of the new
intellectual thinking. Very many among them were still
able to look into the spiritual world. This faculty of
vision — which had already degenerated and become,
as we should say nowadays, a lower astral clairvoyance
had in its character a certain effect upon the general
evolution of mankind. That this lower form of
clairvoyance produces a very definite type of human
being, a definite trait of character in those endowed
with it, was clearly evident in these people. It was
innate in them to demand from surrounding Nature what
they needed for their sustenance while expending the
minimum of effort themselves. They knew that
divine-spiritual Beings are present in the plants, the
animals, and so on, because they actually beheld them;
they knew that these Beings are the powers behind all
physical creation. But this knowledge prompted them to
demand that without any effort on their own part the
divine-spiritual Beings by whom they had been placed in
existence should provide for their sustenance. Many
things could be quoted as expressions of the disposition
and tenor of soul prevailing in these peoples with their
decadent, astral clairvoyance.

In the
period which it is important for us to consider now, all
these peoples were nomadic, having no settled
habitations; they wandered about as herdsmen, without
preference for any particular locality, careless with
what the Earth had to offer and only too ready to destroy
anything around them when they needed it for their
sustenance. These people were not called upon, nor indeed
were they qualified, to do anything to raise the level of
culture, to transform the Earth.

Thus there
arose what is perhaps one of the greatest antitheses in
the whole of post-Atlantean evolution: the antithesis
between these more northerly peoples and the Iranians.
Among the Iranians the longing arose to take a hand in
what was going on around them, to live settled lives, to
acquire possessions through effort, in other words, to
apply man's spiritual forces in order to achieve the
transformation of Nature. That was the strongest urge in
the Iranians. And in the immediately adjacent lands to
the North, lived the people who saw into the spiritual
world, were on familiar terms, so to speak, with the
spiritual beings, but were wanderers, having no
inclination for work and without any interest in
furthering culture in the physical world.

This
drastic antithesis was purely the outcome of the
different forms taken by soul-development. It is also
known in external history as the great antithesis between
Iran and Turan. But the causes of it are not understood.
Actually they are as stated above.

Turan lay
to the North, in the area towards Siberia. Its
inhabitants, as already said, were people heavily endowed
with an inherited, lower astral clairvoyance, and who in
consequence of their experience in the spiritual world
had neither inclination or sufficient understanding to
establish any form of external culture. Because these
people were of a passive disposition and their priests
were often magicians and sorcerers of an inferior type,
whenever spiritual matters were concerned they were wont
to engage in very questionable magical practices, indeed
not infrequently in actual black magic. To the South lay
Iran, where at a very early stage, as we have seen, an
urge arose in the people to transform the world of sense
with even the most primitive means then available and
through the spiritual faculties of man to establish forms
of external culture and civilization.

Now you
will be able to form an idea of the great antithesis
between Iran and Turan. — A beautiful myth —
the legend of Djemjid— tells how King Djemjid led
his people from the North down towards Iran. He had
received from the God who would presently come to be
recognized and whom he called Ahura Mazdao, a golden
dagger by means of which he was to fulfil his mission on
Earth. From the apathetic masses of the Turanians, King
Djemjid drew people whom he had specially trained, and in
the golden dagger we have to see an impulse for the
attainment of wisdom connected with the external
faculties of men, wisdom capable of redeeming certain
faculties that had already become decadent and of imbuing
them with the spiritual force man can acquire on the
physical plane. This golden dagger, like a plough, turned
the earth into arable land, made possible the first,
primitive inventions of mankind. It worked on and is
working to this clay in all the achievements of culture
and civilization in which men take pride. There is great
significance in the fact that King Djemjid who went from
Turan down to the Iranian country received this dagger
from Ahura Mazdao. It represents a force given to man
whereby he can work upon and transform external
Nature.

The same
Being from whom this golden dagger was received was also
the great Inspirer of Zarathustra or Zoroaster,
Zerdutsch, the leader of the Iranian people. It was
Zarathustra who in primeval times — soon after the
Atlantean catastrophe — instilled the impulses he
was able to bring from the holy Mysteries into the people
who felt the urge to apply the power of the human spirit
to external culture. Zarathustra was to give new hopes,
new vistas of the spiritual world to this people who no
longer possessed the ancient Atlantean vision. He opened
out the path along which the people were ultimately to
realise that the outer sunlight is only the external body
of a sublime spiritual Being whom he called Ahura Mazdao,
the ‘great’ Aura, in contrast to the 'little'
aura of man. Zarathustra wanted to convey that this same
Being — then still in remote cosmic distances
— would one day descend to the Earth in order to
unite His very substance with the Earth and to work on
further in the history and evolution of humanity. Thus
Zarathustra directed the minds of these people to the
same Being who lived later on in history as the Christ. [
Note 02 ]

The mighty
achievement of Zarathustra consisted in this: to the new
post-Atlantean humanity who had fallen away from the
divine worlds, he revealed the path of re-ascent to the
spiritual and gave to men the hope of being able to reach
the goal, even with forces that had descended to the
level of the physical plane. Whereas the ancient Indian
attained to the spiritual in its old form
through Yoga-training, a new path was to be opened out to
men through the teaching of Zarathustra.

Zarathustra
had a. patron — a figure of great significance. But
here I must emphasize that thc date of the Zarathustra of
whom I am speaking was said, even by the Greeks, to have
been five thousand years before the Trojan War; He is
not, therefore, the figure whom external history calls by
that name, nor the Zarathustra mentioned as living in the
days of Darius. — The original Zarathustra had a
patron who can be called Gushnasp — the name that
became customary later on. Zarathustra was a majestic,
priestly character, one who pointed to the great Sun
Spirit, Ahura Mazdao, the Being who guides humanity back
from the physical to the spiritual, and Gushnasp was a
kingly character, ready to perform any action in the
external world that would spread the mighty inspirations
of Zarathustra. Hence the inspirations and aims of
Zarathustra and Gushnasp that were taking effect in
ancient Iran inevitably came into contact with the
conditions prevailing immediately to thc North. And the
result of the impact was one of the greatest wars ever
fought in the world, a war of which little is said in
external history because it took place in such a remote
past. It was a conflict of the greatest possible
magnitude, between Iran and Turan. And out of this war
— which lasted, not for decades but for centuries
— there developed a certain mood and attitude of
soul that persisted for a long time in Asia and the
nature of which can be described somewhat as follows:

The
Iranians, the followers of Zarathustra, spoke to this
effect: Wherever we look there is a world that descended
from divine-spiritual heights but has now fallen very far
from its earlier level. We must assume that the world of
animals, plants and minerals around us once existed at a
higher level and that it has all become decadent. But man
has the hope of being able to lead it upwards again.

We will now
further translate into words of our language what an
Iranian felt, and try to convey how a teacher would have
spoken to his pupils. He might have said: Think of the
wolf. The animal living as the physical wolf you now see
has fallen from its former estate, has become decadent.
Formerly it did not manifest its bad qualities. But if
good qualities germinate in you and you combine them with
your spiritual powers, you can tame this animal; you can
instill into it your own good qualities, making the wolf
into a docile dog who serves you! In the wolf and the dog
you have two beings characterizing as it were two great
streams of forces in the world. — And so men who
used their spiritual faculties to work upon the
surrounding world were able to tame the animals, to raise
them to a higher level, whereas the others left the
animals as they were, with the result that they descended
to lower and lower stages of existence.

Here were
two different forces, the one being applied by men whose
attitude was as follows: If I leave Nature as she is, she
sinks lower and lower; everything becomes wild. But I can
direct my eyes of spirit to a good Power in whom I trust;
then that Power will help me and I shall be able to lead
up-wards again what is in danger of sinking. This Power
gives me hope that further development is possible!
— The Iranian conceived this Power to be Ahura
Mazdao and he said to himself: Man can ennoble and
sublimate the forces of Nature when he unites himself
with Ahura Mazdao, with the power of Ormuzd. Ormuzd
represents,an upward-flowing stream. But if man leaves
Nature as she is, he will see everything degenerating
into a wild state. This is due to Ahriman — And now
the following mood developed in the regions of Iran. Men
said: North of us live many who are in Ahriman's service.
They are the Ahriman-folk who wander about the world and
take what Nature gives them, who will do nothing to
spiritualise Nature. We, however, will unite ourselves
with with Ahura Mazdao!

Thus men
became aware of duality in. the world. The Iranians, the
people of Zarathustra, felt this duality and desired so
to organise their life that the urge towards a higher
form of existence should come to expression in their
laws. This was the outer consequence of Zoroastrianism
and herein we must see the contrast between Iran and
Turan. The war of which occult history gives so many and
such detailed accounts, the war between Ardshasp and
Guslinasp — the former being the King of the
Turanians and the latter the patron of Zarathustra
— is an expression of the antithesis between the
North and the South, between the men living in the two
regions of Turan and Iran. If we grasp this, we shall
perceive a current of soul-life flowing from Zarathustra
to the whole of the humanity upon whom his influence was
exercised.

To begin
with, then, it was necessary to describe the whole
milieu, the whole environment into which Zarathustra was
placed. We know from earlier lectures [ Note 03 ] that the Individuality who
incarnated into the bloods that flowed from Abraham
through three times fourteen generations and who appeared
as Jesus of Nazareth of whom the Gospel of St. Matthew
tells, was Zarathustra, the Individuality who had been
Zarathustra. It was therefore necessary to look for him
where he is first to be found, in the very early
post-Atlantean epoch. And now the question arises: Why
was it that the blood that flowed from Abraham in Western
Asia through the generations was the blood best fitted
for a later embodiment of Zarathustra? (For in one of his
incarnations Zarathustra was Jesus of Nazareth.)

In order to
approach this question it was necessary, in the first
place, to ask about the central figure — the
Zarathustra-Individuality — who incarnated into the
blood of the Hebrew people. Tomorrow we shall have to
consider why it was necessarily this blood, this
particular racial stock, from which Zarathustra derived
his body as Jesus of Nazareth.

Notes:

1. A list of
publications recommended for study in connection with
the following lectures will be found on page 239.

2. See Appendix
I, p. 233.

3. E.g.
Deeper Secrets of Human History in the Light of
the Gospel of St. Matthew, Lecture II.
(Obtainable from Rudolf Steiner Press.)